eading to the Close.

"Goo--good-morning, Mrs. Milo," stammered the florist, putting his cigar
behind his back with one large motion that included a bow.
"Good-afternoon. I've just brought the festoons for the wedding-bower."
Once more he jerked his head in the direction of the bay-window, and
edged his way toward it a step or two, his fluttering eyelids belieing
the smile that divided his beard.

Mrs. Milo, her background the heavy oak door that led to the library,
made a charming figure as she looked down the room at him. She was a
slender, active woman, who carried her seventy years with grace. Her
hair was a silvery white, and so abundant that it often gave rise to
justified doubt; now it was dressed with elaborate care. Her eyes were a
bright--almost a metallic--blue. Despite her age, her face was silkily
smooth, and as fair as a girl's, having none of those sallow spots which
so frequently mar the complexions of the old. Her cheeks showed a faint
color. Her nose was perhaps too thin, but it was straight and finely
cut. Her mouth was small, pretty, and curved by an almost constant
smile. Her hands were slender, soft, and young. They were not given to
quick movements. Now they hung touching the blue-gray of her
morning-dress, which, with ruffles of lace at collar and wrists, had the
fresh smartness of a uniform.

"You are smoking?" she inquired. That habitual smile was on her lips,
but her eyes were cold.

"Just--just a dry smoke,"--with a note of injured innocence.

"Your cigar is in your mouth," she persisted, "and yet you're not
smoking."

At that, the florist took a forward step. "And my teeth are in my
mouth," he answered boldly, "but I'm not eating."

Another woman might have shrunk from the impudence of his retort, or
replied angrily. Mrs. Milo only advanced, with slow elegance, prepared
again to put him on the defensive. "Why do I find you in this room?" she
demanded.

"I'm just passing through--to the lawn."

"Do not pass through again."

"Well, I'd like to know about that," returned the florist,
argumentatively. "When I mentioned passing through the Church, why, the
Rector, he says to me----"

Mrs. Milo lifted a white hand to check him. "Never mind what Mr. Farvel
said," she admonished sharply; then, with quick gentleness, "You know
that he has lived here only little more than a year."

"Oh, I know."

"And I have lived here fifteen years."

"True," assented the florist.